Kyle Portman

Name: Kyle Portman

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Grade: Senior

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Karate, math, reading.

Appearance: Kyle stands at about 5’8” tall and weighs roughly 160 pounds- a little high for his height, but still healthy, and excusable because of his muscle mass; he’s a little muscular, not bulky like a football player stereotype, but lean and lithe like a gymnast, or a martial arts practitioner. He has a little color to his skin due to spending plenty of time outside. He’s white, although as previously said, he’s a little tan. He wears glasses due to a childhood injury, which damaged the lens of his left eye, and a later injury that damaged the retina of his right eye. The retina injury is obviously not reparable by the glasses, but has not damaged his vision beyond colorblindness and blurry vision.

Kyle’s hair is brown and slightly curly, but not very long. His eyes are blue, slightly mottled with green and grey. His glasses are slim, very expensive and always fitted with impact resistant frames and lenses. His nose is slightly crooked, broken in a similar incident to the one which damaged his retina. There is a highly faded scar across his left eye, another artifact of the accident that caused the lens damage. His ears are small, almost small enough to make wearing glasses slightly difficult. His mouth is wide and smiley. His neck is a little short, giving his upper body a slightly stubby look. His face is round and honest, and generally very bright. His face is fortunately unmarred by the ravages of puberty, although it shows some obvious signs of other damage, like getting punched.

His body build is fairly slim and lithe, although that should not fool anybody. His muscles are obvious and toned, but not bulging. His chest is a little broad, but not obviously so. His hands are slightly grotesque, with the first two knuckles so built up from hard practice that his hands are usually partially bent. His feet are similarly enlarged, requiring him to wear specially cobbled shoes in order to accommodate the padding on the top of his feet. His legs are more obviously muscled, with his glutes, thighs and calves all very sturdy and hardened. He typically wears a short sleeved shirt and jeans, with thick wool socks even in the heat of summer.

Biography: Kyle’s story begins before his birth. In 1982, about eight years prior to his birth, a young MMA fighter was injured in the ring. This fighter was his father, who went on to marry the nurse who had treated him in the hospital. When Kyle was born in January 1990, his father decided that his son would certainly be trained in the art of fighting. Three years later, he suffered a debilitating leg wound which cut his MMA career short. Growing up in Colorado, in the mountains, Kyle was a typical little kid; running, jumping and playing on rocks. Two major events marred his idealistic life. The first happened when he was four, when his older sister accidentally struck him in the eye with a nail while they were playing around. She had swung a stick with the nail in it at him, not expecting to hit, and the head of the nail had torn into his eyelid, scratching the lens of his eyeball and leaving him with a scar and poor eyesight. He still hasn’t forgiven his sister for this, even though she graduated two years ago. The second event was the death of his mother. She died of cancer when he was six, shattering his tiny world. His father was maddened by grief, and spontaneously decided to sell their home and move to Minnesota. They settled into the St. Paul area, with plenty of money in the bank. Kyle’s father, still living in his MMA past, set up a Dojo on the ground floor of their house, while he and his children lived on the floor above.

As soon as they were settled in, Kyle’s father began training Kyle in the Shotakon and Wado-kai styles of karate, as a way of teaching the boy perseverance, strength, wisdom and humility. It had the fortunate side effect of ensuring he could stand up to bullying which may come his way due to his slightly nerdy attitude, general quietness and the glasses. By the age of ten, Kyle was going to small tournaments in the general area. It was in one of these tournaments he received the more serious injury which caused the partial blindness in his right eye. An outside roundhouse kick got past his guard and out of the control of the kicker, driving the other boy’s foot into Kyle’s right orbital socket. His father took him to an eye doctor right away, who told them that the retina had been damaged. The laser surgery was not available to someone so young, and because his vision was not entirely gone, Kyle elected to delay the surgery until after he graduated high school. He also elected to avoid tournament sparring until he had it fixed, to avoid a full detachment. He still trained daily, but due to his father’s strict standards, could not increase in rank until he again took up sparring. Soon, his training consisted mostly of conditioning with bi-monthly basics work so his skills would not get rusty. He also dabbled briefly with the use of weapons, like a bokken and blunted knives, but quickly tired of it and stopped the dabbling entirely.

In school, Kyle applied the same hard work discipline of the dojo to his schoolwork. He excelled in math, entering into higher math classes than his peers. He also enjoyed reading, especially reading fantasy. His favorite author was Terry Pratchett for sometime, before he started picking up more books at the library. His father was unwilling to spend the money to get Kyle a bookshelf, instead requiring him to build one himself. Kyle did so, and said shelf is now on the verge of collapse from the books piled on it. Kyle keeps it from collapsing with a cinder block placed under the center of the load. He made a few friends, but considers everybody who isn’t overtly hostile to him to be a friend, even if it’s only in name. Additionally, his father felt it was necessary to enroll him in some basic survival classes, since Kyle was once at least partially interested in hiking. However, both soon decided it was mostly a waste of time, and Kyle dropped the classes. He still retains some information from them, mostly on simple things like making a small shelter.

Despite his generally good demeanor, Kyle has a few serious problems. He has OCD, for starters. His case is not horribly serious, but does manifest itself in odd ways. First, he has a strict morning schedule he must follow. He wakes up and rolls out of his bed to the right. He goes to the bathroom, making sure to touch the handle to the door downstairs both passes. He dresses, first his socks, then his pants, then his shoes, and finally his shirt. The socks themselves are a slight manifestation, with him needing wool socks and only wool socks. He continues by brushing his teeth and hair. He then goes down to the dojo, kneels and bows thrice: once toward the picture of his father, once toward the picture of his mother, and once toward the dojo precepts on the wall. After bowing, he stretches for fifteen minutes, then does fifty push-ups followed by 100 sit-ups. He alternates between punching and kicking the bag depending on the day, then goes upstairs and eats breakfast. With 30 minutes to the start of school, he takes a shower, grabs his stuff and leaves. Failing to follow this exact order causes nausea and a general anxious feeling. He is able to ignore it in extreme cases, but always eventually falls to the compulsion. The longest he has ever ignored it was three days, and that was due to extenuating circumstances wherein he was not at home. His second major compulsion is one that crops up in school. When writing by hand with a pencil, and only with a pencil, he writes five words, and then the sixth twice, first backwards then forewords. Every twentieth word, he switches the pattern, with the first word being the doubly written one, and the next five written normally. He can control it slightly, although it once again causes nausea and anxiety. This one is easier to control, as no outside forces ingrained him into it as the morning routine was. The final major compulsion is his nightly routine. He first does another fifty pushups and hundred sit ups, runs thirty laps around the dojo, and then takes his shower. He dumps all of his school stuff out of his bag and reorganizes it in the exact same way. He then lays out the clothes he will wear the next day, shuts off the light, and goes to sleep. Once again, failure to do this will cause nausea and anxiety.

Kyle has no major phobias, and only one fear that really affects his life. It’s a really silly fear, one that caused much teasing when he was younger. He’s simply afraid of butterflies. The fear came from being “tasted” by one when he was three, which caused fear for the rest of his life. He avoids the landing of them on himself, and was mildly traumatized by the first grade project of bringing one through it’s life cycle, because the teacher required everybody to hold it on their finger.

Advantages: Kyle is disciplined, with a serious amount of determination. While his direct fighting skills have seen 8 years of disuse, he still has the muscle memory and strength of a practicing martial artist. He also has some knowledge of the use of bladed weapons, although he has no experience with guns. He has slight rusty knowledge from early survival classes, mostly about the creation of shelter. Finally, his early childhood allowed him to experience the hard hiking that exists in the mountains, in case it ever became relevant.

Disadvantages: Kyle’s OCD is the most major disadvantage he is faced with. Obviously, he cannot entirely complete his routines during his time on the island, and it may render him unable to utilize his advantages to his fullest ability. He also has poor vision on his right side regardless of the state of his glasses, and even worse vision overall if he loses his glasses entirely. He also has a strange fear of butterflies which, while not debilitating, could be sufficient to cause him trouble. Finally, a solid blow to the head could cause total blindness on his right side by fully detaching his retina.

Designated Number: Male student no. 127

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Designated Weapon:Gurka Knife

Conclusion: At least B127 has some knowledge on bladed weapons because that's about the only thing he's got going for him... His little OCD issue is DEFINITELY going to cause him some grief. And, regrettably, I'm sure there are a few butterflies on my beautiful island. Sorry, Kyle-dear.

'The above biography is as written by Serpentis.Deteramot. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Serpentis.Deteramot

Kills: None

Killed By: Charlene Norris

Collected Weapons: Gurka Knife (Assigned Weapon)

Allies: Hayley Kelly, Ema Ryan

Enemies: None

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Kyle, in chronological order.

Pre-Game:
 * Always The Better Option
 * Pour Me a Drink
 * "A wretched hive of scum and villainy?" "Worse, high school students."

V4:
 * Break Up And Break Down
 * Sorry, Mom. Sorry, God.
 * Going Round In Circles
 * Pleather for Breakfast
 * Make/Break
 * Instinct
 * Without Love, It Cannot Be Seen

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Kyle Portman. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * Kyle was part of a love triangle, with Hayley Kelly and Ema Ryan. Of them, Kyle was my favorite, in no small part because he came off as a legitimately good and flawed person. Kyle was empathetic, and he cared about his friends, but he also was willing to stick up for them even when they were clearly delusional or in the wrong. He also was a good portrayal of OCD; it wasn't cartoonish or anything, rather, Kyle would often exhibit slightly unusual behaviors because of it, especially when he was tense or needed to calm down. He was uptight and kind of weird, and that's a thing I can relate to a lot. So, yeah, Kyle was a good read and a lot of fun. - MurderWeasel